With Colleen out on her final diving expedition, I was left
yet again on my own to try and entertain myself. Shockingly, I actually managed to get up
before 9:30am, which for me with no real commitments is a minor miracle. After attacking the breakfast buffet solo, I
decided the punishing walk I had subjected myself to the previous day was not torturous
enough and I thus ventured out on another solo hike. This time I opted to head north instead of
south and made my way up to the Nang Yuan lookout. All-in-all it was an hour and a half round trip, and like my
previous trip it was full of perspiration and panting galore. It was a solid reminder of why all the smart
people were driving mopeds, and only IDIOTS(!) like myself would dare to walk
such hilly routes in these extreme temperatures.
Around lunch time I headed up to the Roctopus headquarters to round up my amphibious girlfriend. This turned in to me sitting around for over
an hour waiting for her as their dive boat was having technical
difficulties. When she finally did show
up, we celebrated the fact that she had not drowned by having one last lunch at
the adjoining restaurant, Mint Kitchen. While I'm sure Colleen was going to miss the
diving when we departed Koh Tao the next day, I was going to miss the deep
fried chicken with cashew nut that they served there. I'm not a huge Thai food fan, but this shit
was Deadly. And yes, that is deadly with a capital
"D".
 |
| The end of diving...and underwater selfies. |
That afternoon we met up with Colleen's friend Ashley from
Kamloops and her boyfriend Joel. Since
Colleen and I are both gluttons we decided to go out for a second lunch with
them complimented by some adult beverages.
By this point in the day I was already starting to reach my
"outdoor quota" and after our second lunch we retreated back to the
hotel to enjoy the splendors of air conditioning before our final night on this
beautiful island.
Once we gathered ourselves and decided we had abused our air
conditioning enough, Colleen and I sauntered down to Chopper's for the last time.
It was a safe assumption that it was going to win the award on our
vacation for the "most visited bar".
It would probably win in a landslide come to think of it. After meeting up with our old buddy Prat, and
Ashley and Joel, it was time to take advantage of the two-for-one beers and
two-for-one daiquiris. My father always
told me that half price beers taste twice as good; and I can't say I can argue
with him on this point. Shortly
thereafter we said our teary goodbyes to Prat and headed out into the night
with Ashley and Joel.
Before we checked out the nightlife, I got Ashley to take us
by their accommodations to show Colleen the kind of places I had thought we
would be staying when we first landed in Bangkok a couple of months ago. For 300 baht a night ($10 Canadian) they had
a private room. Mind you, they had a
shared bathroom, no A/C, a mattress on the floor, no TV and probably an
assortment of creepy crawlers; but hey it was 1/10th the price of what we were
paying! Needless to say the words
"budget accommodations" are not a part of Colleen's vocabulary.
After our sightseeing of how "real backpackers"
travel, the four of us decided to do a tour of some of the local beach
bars. A couple of the places were
offering promotions like "ladies night" and "one free drink". Wisely, Colleen and Ashley were able to
exploit one of the bars' "one free drink ticket per customer" policy
by reentering the bar a second time with disguises on. And by disguises I mean they slightly altered
their hairstyles. But hey, whatever works. Not surprisingly, this same strategy did not
bode so well for Joel and I, and alas the men were made to pay for their
drinks.
On our way back to
our hotel we stopped and had what would probably be our last "street
pancakes" of our vacation and some pad Thai. On an unrelated note: we also saw a dude
almost get run over by a moped. While we
were walking home, a heavily intoxicated guy on a scooter hit the guy walking
in front of us on the footpath and proceeded to just keep driving. I'm not sure what the drinking and driving mopeds
on pedestrian walkways law is, but I'm sure it can't be legal!
~Brentski~
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